Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef is like swimming in the giant tropical exhibits at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Only better, because it’s real! I was laughing underwater as brightly colored schools of fish expertly wove around me. Ryan remarked that fish are lucky to move freely in three dimensions, and now we could too. I love that observation! That is exactly what this trip is about – living in 3D. The most amazing creatures are the giant clams with…
You know how in Alice in Wonderland, one pill to makes you larger and one pill makes you smaller? I’ve been feeling like that – disorientated and out of proportion to my surroundings. It started with jet lag and then continued with the wooziness from living on a rocking boat in Tonga and now a rolling RV in Australia. Things are just a bit off from how they are back home, like driving on the left, and sailing back into…
The best meal we had in Tonga was served in a palm leaf hut. We were the only guests, well, except for the goat. We disembarked on a deserted beach, followed a hand made sign up uneven stairs, past sheep, goats, chickens, and pigs. The structure at the top of the hill was primitively made out of particleboard on three sides and palm leaves on the veranda facing the bay. We would have turned around at this point had the…
The boys are so happy on the boat, even the 78-year-old boy. Everyone has a job sailing a 39 ft catamaran: setting the course, hoisting the sails, lowering the anchor, even driving the dingy. Everyone likes the vantage point of sitting in the captain’s perch. There are many mechanical components on the boat that attract a boy’s attention too: there is a control panel with lots of switches for the generator, batteries, lights and pumps; the captain’s chair has instruments for…
It’s hard to capture the beauty of a thousand islands in the Kingdom of Tonga. Small, perfect islands dot the horizon everywhere you look, overlapping in shades of green. Each one ringed by halos of sand, turquoise, then indigo. It really is a little slice of heaven. The islands sprout palm trees on top, against the sky’s own pantone shades of blue. Warm winds blow from the East. The air is humid, the water warm. The islands are sparsely populated…
We lost Thursday somewhere over the Pacific. We left San Francisco Wednesday night and arrived in New Zealand Friday morning, passing the International Date Line in between. I told the boys we experienced a blip in the space-time continuum, but they didn’t get the reference. It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea of time. We seemed to have travelled back in time as well. The taxis in Tonga are from a previous decade with seat belts optional, roll…
It’s an a little unsettling to let strangers live in your house. We’re renting out our home while we are away for the summer. The renters are friends of friends, but still… You can learn a lot about a family by looking at their bookshelves. What if you had access to snoop through their whole house? It’s silly, but I find myself wanting to impress the renters with my tasteful decor and evidence of my well-adjusted children. I’ve justified some…